10 Quotes From The Always Charming Commodities Guru Jim Rogers

China Photos/Getty ImagesChina bull, commodities guru and bow tie lover Jim Rogers started on Wall Street back in the 60s. He co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros. At one point he essentially shorted Western civilization.

Now he's heavily invested in agriculture, gold, and silver. He is training his children to speak Mandarin because that's where he believes the futures lies. He is also short a major U.S. bank, though he won't say which.

"I don’t know any way to short either Harvard or Stanford."

Explaining that ridiculous ideas work well for contrarian investors, Rogers said that he sees bubbles everywhere including American tertiary educations and European football teams. But that he doesn't know a way to short either of those. Instead he is going to short the U.S. government bond market.

"If you can find ways to invest in Myanmar you will be very, very rich over the next 20, 30, 40 years."

Myanmar, according to Rogers, has an attractive small stock market and few public companies that are still being developed. This is a long bet for Rogers who said that if people find a way to invest in Myanmar now, they will be rich over the next 20 - 40 years.

"The most sensible skill that I can give to somebody born in 2003 is a perfect command of Mandarin."

Rogers is so bullish on China he believes that educating his daughters about China is the best thing he could do for them. He has bought them DVDs in Chinese, and has even hired a Chinese nanny so they can master Mandarin. Rogers has repeatedly said that he thinks the future is in China.

"Become a Chinese farmer, that's what you should do."

"At some times in history, the financials types have been in charge; at other times in history the people who produced real goods have been in charge. It's the way the world has always worked. The key of course is to figure out what's coming next and go there."

“Swim your own races.”

Rogers said that early in his career as an investor, he assumed others knew more than he did, and he would try to mimic them. Over time, he found that when he disagreed with them, he ended up being right. So he began listening to himself over others.

"India is not a place for investors, but it's a fabulous country for tourists"

Rogers is not as optimistic on the other Asian giant, India. He believes the country needs to open up its retail market and make its currency convertible. He argues that politicians need to address the nation's problems now instead of pushing them into the future:

"India has a horrible economic system. Indian politicians are of course now talking the right concepts and are trying to implement them, but a lot goes wrong when they are put into practice and run up against the country's thoroughly anti-capitalist bureaucracy."

"It will end in a bubble when this is over."

Rogers owns gold and isn't looking to sell it now. He has also said that he wouldn't buy gold at these prices, but that he would be more interested if prices fell below the $1,600 per ounce mark. He does however think it is due for a correction because gold prices have been up 11 years in a row:

"It will end in a bubble when this is over. The way bull markets work is they go up and up and then by the end they turn into a bubble and that will happen to gold.

"The United States is the larger debtor nation in the history of the world. This is not news."

Rogers was shocked at the fuss over the U.S. downgrade, which he didn't think it was newsworthy:

"I know you have to report, you've got a lot of viewers. This isn't even old news. This is not news. Everybody in the markets knew this. Markets aren't going down because of this. Markets are going down for many fundamental reasons. America's got staggering problems, Europe has problems, China is slowing down."

"Give the guy a printing press, he’s going to run it as fast as he can."

Photo Illustration by Business Insider

Rogers has long been critical of Fed Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and quantitative easing:

"Dr. Bernanke unfortunately does not understand economics, he does not understand currencies, he does not understand finance. His whole intellectual career has been based on the study of printing money."